The Rolley Coaster Continues...

Just got back from a funeral. Very Christian, but that was okay with me. Not oppressively so, but rather a warm, touching tribute to a Christian woman who died of cancer. Made me wonder about faith, what it is, what it could be. Made me realize how utterly divorced I've become from religion, even spirituality, whatever that means.

I stood up with the funeral people and hummed hymns. Painted a grand sepia-toned caricature of the group in my head. Good people, I decided. Like Robin. Good decent humble folks, retaining those colorful cracks of cynicism, the grime of modern life. But this funeral shows them at their good-hearted best. I've got no wisecracks for this funeral, except I wish someone would go up and do a eulogy based on the Monty Python dead parrot skit: "Margaret Johnson is dead. She's kicked the bucket. She's a stiff. Bereft of life. She rests in peace. She's shuffled off her mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!" Etcetera. Now that would be funny.

The guy who gave the eulogy was the son of the deceased. He was a little choked up throughout, but held it together for the most part. It was intense for me. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the family. I absorbed the atmosphere. The church. Layer upon interlocking layer of tradition. Quaint quilts of comfort. Said goodbye to Robin, dressed in his “Sunday Best”, as they say.

Walked back home. Blue sky, so big, so clear. Warm air. Everything looked crisp, new, internally luminescent. I felt, and still feel, a substance to all of perception that seemed missing for so long. I almost felt like a child again. Okay, I'm probably overhyping this. But I felt good, that much I'm sure of. I walked up the tree-shrouded Mill Street sidewalk, enmeshed in childhood memories. Singing Amazing Grace.

"I once was lost, but now am found... All thanks to 5H...TP."

It's almost scary how well that stuff is working. I feel guilty and nervous. I think I'm going to go off it, because I feel too good, for no reason at all. And I'm worried I might get to like the supplement too much, and it might just turn into a slow-burn version of the sickening ecstasy ride, with its devilishly forked road offering me the choice of addiction, or CRASH. It seems to be a very effective, and natural (sort of) anti-depressant, but I shouldn't need something so drastic right now. I never wanted to be a prozac popper, and though I'm thinking this is way better than prozac, or paxil or what have you... it still disturbs me that it might be sort of the same thing.

I still get episodes of depression and anger and bitterness, mostly related to having recently emerged from the ruins of a relationship (not smoking ruins), and not knowing how to proceed, as a single guy, insecure, yearning for much much more of that sexual possibility I tasted at Shambhala. But since the pills kicked in for me, the funks have been fleeting. Instead of sulking, or feeling sorry for myself, in short order, I'm generally able to buck up and brush the negativity aside.

Okay, I'm probably REALLY overhyping this. Maybe I’m just creating a positive feedback loop for myself (which would be a nice fucking break from all the negative feedback loops I get into), where a nice idea breeds a generation of yet nicer ones, which build upon themselves, until I’ve convinced myself I’ve gotten a chemically-assisted new lease on life – a second childhood! Innocence regained! Well if so, what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except I’ve surrounded myself with too many cynics and read too much dystopian sci-fi to feel comfortable with happiness.

But yeah, I’m overhyping this because I got into a good mood, and I’m inclined to extrapolate that as far and wide as I can. I might be disgusted with myself for writing this later on, when I really am sad, and wanting people to feel sorry for me, and knowing that I undermined my chances of that by writing such a sappy go lucky post the day before. Tomorrow I could be in a real olde timey black mood like Leningrad under grainy siege, pills or no pills. Still, at this point, I'm pretty much positive the pills are more than placebo. And it is a drug. Whether it feels like one or not.

Oh for Christ's sake - I always ruin everything with over-analysis. The unexamined life isn't worth living, Socrates said. But the unexamined drug trip? That would be just fine with me, I think. Too bad it's not in the cards. Oh well.